STAFFURTH & BRAY - SOLICITORS IN BOGNOR REGIS SINCE 1882
Henry Layton Staffurth was born on 20th March 1857 at the home of his Great Uncle Samuel at Bury Hall, Ramsay in Huntingdonshire when Queen Victoria was in the 20th year of her reign and Palmerston was Prime Minister. He attended the local Grammar School in Bedford and in 1875 decided on a legal career and was articled to the family solicitor, Mr Mark Whyley. He was admitted as a solicitor on 1st May 1880 having sat his final examination on 16th January of that year.
After qualifying he initially practised in Malton, Yorkshire as he had relatives in the area, one of whom was possibly Mr William Ellis, this being a family name of one branch of the Staffurth family. Ellis until his retirement in 1879 was the auditor for the West Yorkshire Audit District of the Poor Law Board (an organisation that administered one of the earliest forms of Legal Aid).
The initial connection with Bognor Regis was when Mr William Ellis in 1879 purchased, as a retirement home, St. John’s Vicarage in the town, employing a local solicitor, Mr Arthur G Harvie, to do the conveyancing. Staffurth had formed an attachment with Ellis’ daughter, Caroline, before the family moved south and not welcoming the separation he followed to Bognor in 1882 soon assuming certain posts that had been held by Ellis’ local solicitor. Although there is no direct proof that Staffurth acquired Harvie’s practice, suffice is to say that on 1st August 1882 Henry Layton Staffurth opened his practice in Bognor Regis and by 1889 was sufficiently prosperous to support a wife. He married Caroline on 19th February 1889.
Bognor in the 1880’s had become a boomtown. Staffurth’s first office was apparently at 66 High Street, which in more recent times was the site of the Southdown Bus Station until it was demolished. Staffurth became very much involved in the Urban District and County Councils together with a multitude of local societies. In 1884 he took his younger brother, Ernest Hugh Staffurth into Partnership practising as Staffurth & Staffurth until the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent on 31st December 1902. In 1904 Henry Layton Staffurth reverted to practising under his own name with the assistance of a series of solicitors.
In March 1924 Staffurth employed Reginald Davies Bray who ultimately purchased the practice on Staffurth’s death on 14th September 1931, since when the firm has practised under the name of Staffurth & Bray. Bray was born at Port Talbot in Glamorganshire on 12th May 1889. He passed his final law exam in March 1915 but military service delayed his admission as a solicitor. Red tape delayed his departure from the army until March 1920 but when he was demobilised he paid his admission fee to the law finding a job in Southsea and moving to Bognor Regis in 1924.
There are many stories of what office life was like in those days with the office having just one telephone. Post was collected from the Post Office each morning and copying the daily post was done by soaking it in water in such a way as to avoid the ink running and then inserting the letters in a special book of tracing paper with linen and a waterproof sheet before placing the book in a press to produce imprints.
The move to York Road took place in the late 1890’s. The firm expanded over the years acquiring more offices and now occupies the whole of the first and second floors of one side of York Road together with part of the ground floor and the first and second floors of 21 High Street. There is also a Branch Office at 85 Aldwick Road.
Reginald Bray retired on 31st March 1974 having completed 50 years of active practice in York Road Chambers. Thus the direct link between the Firm and its founders was finally severed. He remained a consultant until his death in 1981 at the age of 92.
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